On June 22 I had the honor of being part of a panel discussion at The Crown and Goose on how location-based services (LBS) specifically Foursquare, are being used and what future trends we can expect.

Joining me on the panel were Lynsay Caylor of Pilot Corporation, Nicole VanScoten of Pyxl, and Zane Hagy of Z11 Communications.

As a panel we agreed that LBS sites are being used more each day; they are a great opportunity for brick-and-mortar to connect to an online audience, and they’re mostly targeted to consumers.

Specific takeaways include:

• Companies offering specials should go beyond the Mayor only specials. It’s often hard to unseat a Mayor, preventing people from trying. By offering additional first-time specials or a special based on return visits, you give your regular customers a reason to come back more often.
• Companies need to think creatively about how they use these tools. Opportunities to unlock difficult badges have proven to be successful. Think about partnering with companies that can give your customers the chance to unlock more than they could from your business only.
• There are some security aspects to using Foursquare. When you say where you are, you’re also saying where you’re NOT.  Every person has a different level of risk they’re willing to accept, but two tactics for security are 1) to check in when you’re leaving a location if you’re there for a while and 2) to not accept anyone as a friend unless you trust them knowing where you are.

We had a question from the audience about how Foursquare could be used in a crisis.  One idea was that the leaders working to solve a crisis could show they’re on top of the situation by checking in to the command center regularly.  Checking in would inspire confidence in a positive outcome.

Overall, it was a very interesting and entertaining event.  I look forward to more opportunities like this.

Thanks to Laura Bower PR for helping arrange the discussion and to Pyxl and the Knoxville Social Media Club for sponsoring. View the Knox ivi event video here.

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